Then planned to take a bus uptown on Madison. Again another day of waiting, waiting, waiting for a bus...
which never came. So we just walked up Madison a bit. We did end up catching a bus about 10 blocks up. We got off and walked west on 83rd to get to the Met. Yaya showed us the school her and Katie went to
which is right across the street from the Met.
We started off the museum in the Egyptian Art section. This was the main thing Kyle was interested in, so we were sure to take our time in this wing.
I was most looking forward to seeing the Temple of Dendur again
This temple was moved in 1963 because the Nile was flooding and a dam was being built. And has resided in the Met since 1978.
It was fun watching people 'pose' next to the sphinx
Yaya taught us about the different hats of Egypt. North Egypt had a short - flat hat, and South Egypt had a tall hat with a little curl on the end. When the north and south combined, they combined their hats as well - as you can see here
There was a line to go in this temple when we first walked by, but then it was cleared up enough for Patrick and Kyle to take a look
After we completed the Egyptian Art Wing, we headed over to another area of interest to both Kyle and I - the Greek and Roman Collections. Yaya was no leading the way as our personal tour guide :-) She took us to some really amazing stuff and gave us lots of cool facts. I'll try to remember as much as I can, sorry if I goof it up a bit.
This was a popular piece she showed us call "Bronze man and centaur"
She taught us a lot about how art was drawn and depicted. And how the way people were standing or posed told a lot about that art. (I have a horrible memory) This terracotta vase (which marked a grave) shows the mourners standing and the dead man is lying
She also talked about the vase designs themselves: as they got better at doing vase art they started carving out definition, then they started making the backgrough black instead of making the athelets black. Like you can see in this vase
This sculpture is of a wounded Amazon and you can see her scar under her armpit
Here's a close up
This Marble column from the Temple of Artemis at Sardis was actually cut so that it could fit in the museum
Then she took us to see the two statues of Hercules. This first one is a Marble statue of a youthful Hercules
This second one is a of a bearded Hercules and depicts him as older and wiser
You can see in one he's holding the lion's skin and in the other he is wearing it.
She showed us the difference in child faces. This first one the child looks like an adult, it wasn't until later that they would sculpt the statue with a child's face like on the cupid (the second one).
I thought this lion was cool
After the Green & Roman Art we walked through the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas
Then made a quick run through the Modern Art section, where we got lost from the boys for about half an hour.... turns out they had gone upstairs to see the rest of the Modern Art in search of us where Yaya and I stayed on the first floor searching for the boys. Once we reunited, we all went up to the top floor because I was wanting to see Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko's work (my two favs).
I'm not sure 'where' we were the remainder of the museum, as we were jumping from place to place trying to get it all in. We did come across Seurat's 'practice' piece. Remember Ferris Bueller's Day Off? The actually painting is in The Art Institute of Chicago, which we made a point to see last November when we were in Chicago. But we came across this painting of his, titled 'Study for "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte".
This was a cool sculpture area we walked by
These were in the American Wing. Diana - a bronze statue (the Met's website has some interesting tid bits about it here)
This fountain was designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany and made by Tiffany Studios. Louis Comfort is the son of Charles Lewis Tiffany who is the founder of Tiffany & Co.
Yaya then took us to one of her favorite areas, which was a room of HUGE paintings
By this point our tummies were all grumbling and we were pretty tired. We left the Met and headed over a block to a little speedy diner called Amity. They sure were SPEEDY! At this point, Patty picked us up and we all headed out to the suburbs of New Jersey to visit the Stanek's for the evening (some more of my cousins). We crossed over the Hudson River on the George Washington Bridge.
And had some amazing views of the city at sunset!
It's amazing looking back at how many pictures I DIDN'T take :-( I was too busy visiting with family I didn't getting any out in Jersey.
We had a lovely dinner, prepared by Susan and had a wonderful visit, then headed back to the city around 9 or 10.
The next day was our helicopter ride :-)
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